You see I watched the movie from a different viewpoint. I knew this was going to be a Peter Jackson rendition of the books and made a conscious decision to not get annoyed at things he added in. I found I enjoyed it a lot more as well because of that.

If I was judging it from a Tolkien fanatic point of view (which I am) then I would be quite disappointed with a lot of it. But from a pure neutral point of view it was great entertainment

I was ok with stuff being added in. I was bummed that a lot of perfectly good stuff (like the way they meet Beorn, which could have been hilarious instead of being chased in by a bear and also the way they try to chase the light of the elves' campfire in Mirkwood) was removed and replaced with much less interesting content.

Mhm, making Bard out to be a lowlife and ruffian was kinda odd. I also wish the Dwarves and Bilbo were actually welcomed into Laketown instead of being smuggled in, chased around and captured.

Anyway, I liked seeing more Dwarven architecture and the forge mechanics inside the mountain. But I gotta say, the movie had some of the best action scenes I've seen in a long time, silly as they were. I'll probably end up seeing it again sometime soon...

I enjoyed the film, though some of the things AK and Aeridian pointed out were kind of weird. I knew from the start that these films wouldn't be completely true to the book, and I think Peter Jackson has done a good job of allowing variation yet keeping the general story the same. One other point, though, is that I think Jackson could've kept some scenes the same as they would've been better that way and not the way they were filmed.

Yeah, they kinda have to make some changes, or those who have read the book(which you should before you see it) will know exactly what happens all the time. The one change that I really thought was unnecessary, though, was bard using that ridiculous giant ballista of silliness to slay the dragon. It's so iconic that he uses his own bow to slay the dragon!!! other than that, though, the movie was epic! I imagine in the TABA wave, there will be a Smaug vs Bard set with a hopefully brick built smaug, and bard with his crossbow of silliness.